Araucana crosses

[smoothmule]

Here is one of the older chicks, I love the green eyes. All of these first Araucana cross chicks had green eyes.
Those "are" muffs, right? They confuse me a bit since they seem to be placed more like tufts than muffs and they look more like tiny feathers rather than fluff like the Ameraucana's had. What do you all think? Muffs? or Tufts?

 

[VillageChicken]

Here in Europe, the Araucana standard is different - they allow tails, and the muff/beard that Ameraucanas have, that's why there are no Ameraucanas here. I have a few with both tufts and the muff/beard. The gene for muffs is the same as for beards, and separate from "tufts". Your chick looks more like tufts, to me. As far as I know, muffs is the same as bearded, and you would not have one without the other. It is incompletely dominant, so a heterozygous Mb/mb would have a smaller beard than a Mb/Mb. It will be more clear when the chick feathers out more, but at that stage, my muffed chicks had pin feathers emerging all around the chin and ears, fairly evenly, and the neck develops a fullness in the feathers as well, making the neck look thicker than your chick's. It's hard to tell sometimes because tufts come in all sizes, face all different directions, and can be found in various locations around the neck and head. At least from your picture, your chick looks like it has tufts that point rearward, and blend in a bit with the other neck feathers. But I see 3 distinct feathers that stand out from the neck. In what I've seen of muffs/beards, you don't see feathers stand out distinctly like yours. Yours could have both as well, I think at that stage, the beard didn't really show. I believe the muff/beard feathers in later than tufts.

I have a young cockerel with both tufts and muff/beard. The features are quite distinct and separate.
Here is one of the muffed Araucanas, as she's feathering out you don't see much, but she ended up with a full muff/beard and much thicker neck feathering.

I haven't seen a lot of tufted chicks, but Lanae your chick looks more like tufts to me, or, as you say, HUGE muffs.

 

[smoothmule]

Do you have any photo's of the tufts and muffs together?

 

[key west chick]

These look nothing like them, but this pair is Araucana and a small game breed. Mom was a tailed. clean faced mottles Araucana, dad was the little game.

mom

dad

pullet

cockerel ignore the white EE, shes just for size comparasion.

 

[Illia]

Quote:
Those are tufts.

Edited as I saw confirmation on the Araucana thread. The do indeed look like muffs at first though.

 

[smoothmule]

Humm, that is a little confusing to me. My rooster Rudy has been the only one that is fertile, I've tried Degas all summer and not a single fertile egg till switched them out and put my clean faced Rudy in with the hens to check his fertility. Immediately, I was getting fertile eggs. Wow, what are the odds of tufts when the Araucana rooster is clean faced and the hens are Maran and Ameraucana?? weird

 

[VillageChicken]

Here is a tufted muffed/bearded araucana from Germany. Pretty amazing looking.

 

[smoothmule]

Wow

Now that is really cool

 

[smoothmule]

I need to go out and take some new pics of the blue pullet and examine her better. I'll try to get a real close up. I'm still confused about how they could possibly be tufts.

 

[Illia]

There's an Araucana breeder in Bellingham, WA, who's got an EE x Araucana - hen as both muffs/beard and tufts - She's gorgeous, just like that one from Germany. I think having the muffs and beard really accentuates the tufts!